SpaceX, a company that I greatly admire, has the following mission statement, “The Company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets” (SpaceX, 2019); I believe this statement is an all-encompassing summarization of the purpose of SpaceX. Elon Musk started SpaceX with one purpose, setting up a colony on Mars.

A mission statement describes the organization’s business and intended areas of operation. The mission statement answers the following questions: What does the organization do? Who does the organization do it for? The mission statement should be precise, yet include all operations, both internal and external (Whitman, 2016).

While SpaceX doesn’t have an official vision statement, it has been discussed that it would be, “To advance the future” (MSA, 2019). At the core of SpaceX’s desires, they wish to merely provide humanity the tools and knowledge to ensure the continuation of our species after we damage Earth beyond repair, by colonizing other planets.

A vision statement is an optimistic depiction of what the organization desires to become. The vision statement answers the following question: Where does the organization want to go or become? The vision statement is merely the ideal projected future of an organization, summarized into one statement (Whitman, 2016).

SpaceX doesn’t have an official values statement either, however, “SpaceX’s mission, vision & values motivate 75% of SpaceX employees. Besides getting paid, the “company mission” is the most important thing about their work for 20% of employees at SpaceX. 45% of employees say that the main reason they stay at SpaceX is because of the SpaceX company mission. Comparably data clearly shows that a focused mission statement and cohesive core company values are vital to maintaining employee alignment” (Comparably, 2019). I believe SpaceX’s values statement would be directly aimed at the motivation of its employees through the shared goals of the organization through the means of science and technology.

A values statement includes organizational principles and qualities, as well as the measures used to govern the standard of performance and ethics of an organization’s attempt to satisfy both the mission and visions statement (Whitman, 2016).

References

SpaceX. (2012, November 28). Retrieved December 10, 2019, from https://www.spacex.com/about.

Whitman, M., & Mattord, H. (2016). Management of Information Security. (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

MSA. (2019, October 11). SpaceX Mission Statement 2019: SpaceX Mission & Vision Analysis. Retrieved December 10, 2019, from https://mission-statement.com/spacex/

SpaceX Mission, Vision & Values. (2019). Retrieved December 10, 2019, from https://www.comparably.com/companies/spacex/mission.